


The Benefits of Humanoid Relationships

by Closeted_Bookworm



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bing is a good boi, Mild Robot Violence, One sided friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-02-22 21:01:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23967013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Closeted_Bookworm/pseuds/Closeted_Bookworm
Summary: Google runs into some trouble, and Bing gets him out of it, much to Google's surprise.
Relationships: Googleplier & Bingiplier
Comments: 6
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

Google stomped moodily down the forest path, grumbling under his breath as his core hummed irritably. He was so fed up with Bing. The stupid little default did nothing but detract from productivity in the andriods’ shared workspace. They hadn’t had the chance to expand it since Google’s upgrade, and cramming four times the amount of bad-tempered robots into the already undersized workshop had yet to lead to anything good. Google had spent most of the morning exasperated at Bing’s increasingly annoying exploits. After he’d roped Oliver into a project that left the two of them and half the lab covered in neon green slime that smelled of cranberries, Google decided he needed to get out of the house for a few minutes or he might actually kill someone. It was difficult to work on weapons of mass destruction when his own extensions were betraying him in favor of an inferior robot. 

He reached a fork in the trail and headed left, towards the park. Maybe he’d harass the King of Squirrels for a bit to blow off some steam. He always made the cutest shrieks when poked. His notifications dinged, and a text from Bing flashed across his vision. 

_We got the lab cleaned up, you big bubble-blowing baby, you can come back now._

He rapidly sent off an irritated reply. _The workshop is not an environment conducive to my continued progress, thanks to your shenanigans. I will return when my mindset allows for productivity._

_Ouch, man. You’re missing a great lunch though, Bim made burgers._

_I refuse to consume anything that insufferable man cooks. I advise caution if you are considering eating his questionable culinary creations. Stop texting me._

_Why, bro? You’ve already been out for like a half hour, come baaaack._

Google gritted his teeth in agitation. Honestly, who thought it was a good idea to build such a useless and aggravating android when a better one already existed? He continued to argue with Bing, switching his walking completely into autopilot mode and pretty much tuning out the world around him. He was so intent on having the last word in their binary bout that he didn’t register the man that started walking beside him. 

He was snapped out of the virtual world by a rough poke in the arm. Firing off his latest retort to Bing’s jabs, he closed the tab and turned to face the offending passerby. 

“Just what do you think you are doing?”

“Amazing. The skin is so realistic. You really are as astounding as the articles say.”

The “G” on his chest started to glow more intensely. Why was this man harassing him? Or even out in the woods to begin with? “Kindly do not touch me. You will meet a rather grisly end if you cross me, and I would rather keep this shirt clean.”

“So you change clothes, then? It’s not just one outfit all the time?”

His core whired within him, the pitch deepening until it was almost a growl. This man had interrupted his discourse with Bing, was acting suspiciously, and was annoyingly persistent. Most people backed off after he started glaring, but this guy was smirking at him. It irked him when other people smirked; he should be the only one smirking in a conversation. “What do you want?” 

The man’s grin stretched to the breaking point, showing more gum than teeth. “To learn more about you, of course. You’re such a fascinating machine. Our biggest problem was that you never left that infernal workshop, and we couldn’t take on five androids at the same time. But you’ve removed that obstacle for us, so what better time than now to get a much closer look?”

Google’s processors analyzed the threat behind the words, and mental alarm bells started ringing. His logical brain went into overdrive. The man had used “we,” so there was more than one of them. They wanted him specifically, why, he did not know. They were strong enough that they thought they could take him down, but weak enough that his extensions could have fought them off. The one roadblock to reaching him had been removed, so they would most likely attack him right this very minute. 

His mind raced with possible courses of action. If they were confident they could take him out, even with his reputation, then he could not dismiss the possibility that they could be more than he could handle. The most logical thing to do was to recruit support and increase his chances of fending off the attack. He swiftly reviewed opportunities for assistance. The park was too far away to get help from King; Wilford’s studio, Dr. Iplier’s clinic, The Host’s library, and Dark’s office were miles away; Silver Shepherd was halfway across the city patrolling near the police station; and the rest of the egos were back at home. His extensions and Bing, with their enhanced physical capabilities, were the only ones with the capacity to get there fast enough.

The man crouched into a fighting stance and whipped out a taser, waving it threateningly in his direction. Google relaxed a bit, a malicious grin spreading across his face, knowing his silicone skin protected him from electrical shocks. Did this man honestly think he was stupid enough to leave his inner workings open to electrical interferance? The foolhardy human, who apparently had a severely underdeveloped sense of self preservation, charged towards him, the electrodes on the taser popping, and shoved it into his chest. Instead of the electricity he had expected to feel, however, the taser spat out a clump of cyan sparks that embedded themselves in Google’s skin. A weird numb feeling appeared where he’d been hit, like his pain sensors had suddenly deactivated in that area without his permission. The light vanished beneath his skin, and his visual feed glitched into black and white. This was less than ideal.

Google shoved the man away, doing a scan of his assailant to look for potential weaknesses and information about what had just impaired his visual sensors.

Flashing through the data in the scan, he almost missed parrying the taser thrust towards his torso, dodging just in time. He started in surprise as the scan revealed that his attacker was a robot himself. Fairly simple in design, but there was some sort of power surge in the hand holding the taser that he could not explain, which put him on edge. This was a threat. He needed to keep from getting hit until he could get help. Now he just had to keep an eye out for the-

A force slammed into his back and the numb feeling sprouted there as well, knocking him off balance as his gyroscope suddenly wheeled off-kilter. He stumbled, half-falling a few steps before regaining his equilibrium and facing his new attacker, which was an exact duplicate of the first robot. The sparks must have jammed more than his color vision, he hadn’t seen it coming at all. He could see three more duplicates sprinting through the trees. He was going to have his hands full; he really needed to get help. 

The duplicates swarmed him, and he fought off attack after attack, trying to avoid getting tagged by the now-glowing electrodes. The fight grew more intense as the number of enemies rose to five, and Google knew he wasn’t going to last long without reinforcements. There were too many of them. He opened his settings, attempting to send off an alarm signal to his extensions, but one of the duplicates nipped under his defenses and jammed the taser into his stomach, causing his menu to glitch closed. Google grimaced and threw the robot into a tree, but he looked down in alarm to see another cluster of sparks burrowing into his skin. His focus slipped as he tried again to figure out what he’d been hit with as more of his systems failed, and the duplicates pressed their advantage, landing strike after strike. As more sparks dug into the android, his movements started slowing and he lost input completely from his right eye. He tried to send the distress call again, but his messaging apps were malfunctioning and throwing off his instructions. His joints started locking up and glitches were eating at the edge of his vision. As a last resort, he tried frantically to send a text to Bing, but his core sputtered and died before he could send a single word. 

Bing got the notification that Google had read his text just as he was finishing lunch. He opened it, a little confused. The persnickety android never opened a text without sending off a snappy reply. Seriously, Bing couldn’t remember a single time he hadn’t. He always sent something, even if it was just a simple “Shut up,” and Google was nothing if not consistent. Why hadn’t he responded? 

“Hey, Oliver, is Google good?” he yelled into the next room, where he knew Oliver was playing Mario Kart with Green. “He didn’t text me back.”  
There was no response, so Bing pushed back his chair and went to ask again. 

“Dude, is Google all ri-” Bing stopped. Green and Oliver were slumped on the couch, logos dark and cores shut down. The music for Coconut mall still played, but both androids were completely comatose. 

He ran downstairs to the workshop to check on Red. The robot was dead where he stood, a wrench still clutched tightly in his fist and joints locked into place. 

“Crap, not good, not good-”

Bing ran out the front door and leapt onto his jet-propelled hoverboard, turning down the forest path he knew the other android liked. The extensions only shut down when Google did, which meant that he had either run out of battery in the middle of the woods (unlikely since his hair is literally made of solar panels) or he’d been attacked. 

Attacks on egos were not uncommon, since most of them were incapable of keeping out of trouble (cough-Jims-cough) or had a tendency to kill people (Wilford, no explanation necessary), but few people were willing to mess with a powerhouse like Google. With his literally perfect knowledge of martial arts, incredible strength and resistance, and the help of his extensions, he was not an easy target. Not to mention the amount of people you angered besides Google himself by attacking an Iplier. This person probably posed a serious threat if they were willing to risk the wrath of the entire group. Crap, he really hadn’t thought this through. He was charging in by himself to fight something that had just brought down Google. The only thought that had been running through his mind was that he needed to get there fast, and no one could match him for speed except maybe Silver, who was too far away. Still, he should have gotten some more egos, or gone to Dark, or the Septics. Better late than never, he supposed, sending Dark a text about the situation, marked urgent. Hopefully the others would be close behind him. 

Bringing up the location marker from the last text Google had sent, he input the coordinates and hoped fervently he was still somewhere close by. He floored it, trees whizzing past as the pleasing drone of his board tickled his ears. 

As he approached the spot, he turned off his lights and slowed down until his motor was an inaudible hum, turning off of the trail so he could approach from the cover of the trees. For once he was glad his logo didn’t glow, it allowed him to be more stealthy. He could hear motors buzzing as he got closer, meaning there were other robots here. It made sense to send androids after another android, he supposed. He caught sight of the enemy bots through the trees. They were humanoid, but they were all identical and their motion was canned and fake, missing all the graceful imperfections of human movement. He noticed with pride that they all looked pretty beat up already, scuffed and banged-up just about everywhere. Google’s work, for sure. But where was he? Bing drifted carefully closer, trying to see the deactivated android through the undergrowth. He must be laying on the ground, since that was the only thing he couldn’t see. He inched ever closer, completely focused on being as quiet as possible. If he tipped them off now, who knows what would happen.

When he saw Google, though, he nearly lost his head.

Because Google had lost his head.

These robots were in the middle of _disassembling_ Google. They had detached his limbs and were currently in the middle of emptying his chest cavity. It was horrifying to see the inner workings exposed to the world. Each part of the android was carefully laid out on the ground as they removed it, and they had a stupid little helicopter camera recording everything. Anger boiled inside of him. What right did these remote-operated coffee machines have to shut Google down and dissect him like a frog in a science class? On a dirt path in the middle of a forest, no less?

His core whirred in rage as he watched them remove a single gear and hold it up for the camera like someone would do for an unboxing video. He knew he wasn’t thinking super clearly, but he frankly didn’t care. Powering the lights of his board back on, he charged into the clearing, bowling over one of the robots and snatching the camera out of the air, crushing it in his fist. He pulled a 180 and saw that all of the robots had drawn weird-looking tasers and were laser-focused on him. Good. 

He zoomed a little ways down the path, trying to make sure Google wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire of the fight. He knocked another down with his board as he drove by, socking the nose of a different one as he flew past again, but they just got back up whenever they were knocked down. He needed to actually deactivate them if he was going to get himself and Google out of this.

The next time he swung around, one of the robots latched onto the back of his hoverboard, and Bing pulled them up by the neck to do a scan and find their battery or another way to shut them down. The robot wriggled free of his grasp and started trying to shock him, and he ducked and punched as well as he could while still trying to get a complete read on the electronics inside these things. Struggling to fight the android off and steer at the same time, he completed his scan just as the duplicate darted past his block and jammed its taser-thingy into the electronic display of the hoverboard. Bright sparks latched onto the screen and disappeared into the inner workings of the board. Bing threw the robot off the hoverboard as the screen started to wig out and the engine sputtered and died. What on earth were those sparks?

“Crap,” Bing yelped as he abandoned ship, not wanting to be a sitting duck on a stationary hoverboard. He kept fighting off the robots as his scan finished processing. After what seemed like forever it popped up on his screen, and he analyzed it as quickly as he could while trying not to get shocked. The scan data confused him; these robots didn’t seem to have a power source. He couldn’t find a battery or anything, even after a re-scan that nearly resulted in him getting tagged in the leg. He did notice, however, that all their wiring seemed to be centralized around a circuit located in the hand that held the taser. 

Hypothesis time. He grabbed the next robot that charged him by the wrist, twisting and squeezing and doing his absolute best to tear the hand from the limb it was attached to. Unfortunately, all he managed to do was crush and dent the metal, and his struggle had left him open to attack from behind. Before he could turn around and block it, he felt electrodes slamming into his shoulder as a duplicate smashed into him. There was a deafening bang and he and the robot were thrown away from each other, a shower of blue sparks raining down between them, settling on the grass for a moment before winking out. 

"What on earth was that?" Bing yelled, scrambling to his feet and eyeing the smoking shell of the robot that had tried to shock him, audio sensors temporarily disabled from the blast. Another andriod charged him, and he yelped and darted out of the way. What was in those tasers and why had it backfired? Did it have to do with the reason these robots had no power source? 

The shock had completely fried the other robot. He wondered if the same thing would happen with the other duplicates. When the next one charged him, he braced himself and let the taser connect with his chest. Another explosion flung him back into a tree, almost certainly putting a dent into his back, but his attacker was left laying completely unmoving on the ground. Sweet. This, he could work with. He ran towards the remaining robots, and they immediately tried to shock him, sending him flying but cooking their inner circuitry into a mess of melted plastic and broken wires in the process. 

He shakily picked himself up, rebooting his audio processors and warily scanning the burned-out androids around him. They were all totally shut down. He pried one of the tasers out of their hands and examined it with interest, careful not to touch the contact points. A quick scan showed that it had not been affected by the blast, and that its only power source was a strange glowing energy in its core he couldn't identify. No wonder they'd been able to knock Google out, it wasn't electricity at all. 

If it was anything, it was probably a magic spell of some sort. It certainly wasn't any energy he'd seen before, but many people in the city could perform various types of sorcery. He snickered, knowing exactly why they didn’t work on him. He'd never been so glad to be friends with Marvin. 

A long time ago, Bing had gotten fed up with The Host constantly using his magic to mess with him. He’d black out his shades, flip his head around backwards, switch his left and right arms, and other relatively harmless but still seriously annoying pranks. So Bing had gotten Marvin to magic-proof his skin. Any magic someone tried to cast on him backfired instantly. He'd nearly popped a seal laughing at the normally dignified Host with his skin glowing bright pink and struggling to detach his tongue from the tip of his nose. 

That spell was why the tasers didn't affect him, and why they'd shut Google down so easily. Once he'd gotten hit a few times, his core probably started shutting down and he couldn't fight back. 

He stowed the taser in his inner compartment, wrapping it with leaves to make sure the metal sides wouldn't activate it, then jogged back over to the mostly dismembered Google to perform a systems check. He was completely inoperative, though his hard drive and storage back ups were thankfully untouched. Bing would have to get all the pieces back to the workshop so he could repair the android. He considered making a sledge, but rejected the idea since he had no materials here and he didn’t want to risk losing parts if they fell off. He'd have to take what he could on the hoverboard and come back for the rest with a better vehicle. Grabbing Google's head and arms, he jumped back onto his board and sped off towards the house. 

With the speed he was going, he almost didn't see Dark and Wilford sprinting down the path until it was too late. He skidded to a halt just in time, Google's parts tucked under both of his arms. 

"Oh my goodness, Bing, what happened? Is that Google's _head?_ "

"Yeah, long story, tell you later, I've gotta get this dude back in one piece first. TLDR, he got jumped. The rest of him is a little ways down this path. Grab whatever you can and take it back to the workshop so I can repair him."

He raced away, leaving a shocked pair of egos in the dust. 

"How'd they get Google and not Bing?" Dark muttered to Wilford. The other flipped his revolver and shrugged. 

"I always figured we were underestimating him. Come on, Darky."


	2. Chapter 2

Bing zipped back to the house and ran down to the basement workshop, dumping the parts he gathered on the workbench next to Red. He darted back out the door to go get more, blowing off worried questions from the other egos about what happened. As he flew back towards the site, he met Dark and Wilford on their way back. 

Dark had gathered up all of Google's pieces with the shadowy tendrils of his aura and was levitating them down the path. Wilford was… licking a taser? Bing shrugged. Apparently the spell only affected electronics. 

"Don't let that touch anything metal," Bing told the pair. "It's what deactivated Google. Is there anything left back there?"

"No, I've got it all. I double checked for you, don't worry."

Bing breathed a sigh of relief. "I didn't want to leave any of him out in the open for too long."

"I expect the full story later, but repairing Google is probably your first priority right now."

"Yeah. Thanks, Dark."

"Would you perhaps like to do an interview on my show? An ego attack is such a marvelous story."

"Sure, Wilford. As soon as Google's back up and running."

Repairing Google took the better part of five days. Bing worked almost non-stop, since he didn’t technically need to eat and he could work and charge at the same time, though he knew it wasn’t exactly the best thing for his battery. Google had destroyed his own physical blueprints after his upgrade, prefering to keep the only copy stored in his own memory, so Bing had temporarily uploaded Google’s data to a laptop so he could put the android back together correctly. He often chatted to the deactivated Google as he worked. It was almost impossible for him to work quietly, and without Oliver to chat with he ended up just talking to Google’s lifeless head. It wasn’t like he could actually hear him, much less provide actual conversation, but he just needed to talk while he worked. 

So he talked. He brainstormed ideas for future inventions and improvements to recent failed experiments, he talked about his ongoing quest to get Dark and Wilford to just shut up and kiss already, he lamented that he was missing taco night, and he rambled on and on about how intricate and wonderful Google’s innards were, as morbid and slightly weird as that was to think about. 

Late at night on the second day, Bing found himself talking to Google about, well, Google. 

“I mean, I know he doesn’t understand emotions very well, but sometimes it gets to a guy, y’know?” He nodded sagely at the still-detached head. “It hurts getting called default all the time. Even Oliver does it. Now, don’t get me wrong, Oliver and I are buds, but it’s not even a conscious thing, he does it without even realizing. I’m just naturally second best to the almighty Googles and no one considers what I bring to the table. Sometimes I wonder why I even stick around. I could just go build my own workshop, or maybe Wilford’s got a studio or tech room I could have. But I stay, because dagnabbit I like the guy, he’s my friend, and he hasn’t kicked me out, which has gotta be worth something.” 

“It’s fun throwing insults at each other, but sometimes I worry that he really means them, that he actually hates me and just doesn’t care about anything. But then I’ll see him helping the Jims with some ridiculous scheme or building Eric a fidget toy to help with his anxiety, and I realize that he’s got to have feelings somewhere, I just have to dig them up. And maybe one day he’ll see I’m something more than a default.”

A spot of grease dripped onto the piston he was holding and he wiped his eyes dry, looking at the wetness on his hand in surprise. He almost never cried. He checked his battery life. Ah, he was almost dead. That explained why he was so worked up. He unhooked the extension cord from the wall and plugged it into the port in his side, turning around to get back to work, trying to wipe his previous train of thought from his mind and starting a rant about why The Host had committed a crime against humanity by eating pineapple on pizza. 

“Done!” Bing cried triumphantly as he finished screwing the last chest panel in place. He was running on empty and his fingers might be permanently stained with Google’s neon blue coolant, but he was finished. He was so ready to have a proper shut down and charging session, but first he had to actually start up the other android. He hooked the laptop containing the other android’s data up to the port in Google’s ear, starting the data transfer and trying to scrub some of the blue off of his fingers as he waited. 

The laptop dinged to let him know it was finished, so he unplugged it and moved it off to the side so it was out of the way. He opened the access panel in Google’s cheek and threw the power switch. 

Google shot up, sensors working in overdrive, so thankful to have masses of input data to sift through at last. He ran a full systems check, and everything seemed to be in perfect working order. Of course it was. He turned to see Bing watching him with wide eyes, and he grabbed the other android and wrapped him in a tight bear hug. The other robot squeaked in surprise, arms pinned to his sides and eyes wide with shock. Google _never_ gave hugs. He wasn’t quite sure how to respond. 

“Bing. Oh my goodness, Bing, I’m so sorry, I was an arrogant fool, I was petty and-”

“Woah, dude, what’s going on? Why are you sorry? You were the one who got attacked.”

Google pulled away, getting down from the workbench to give Bing a proper hug. The smaller android noticed with a jolt that tears were running down the newly awakened robot’s cheeks. 

“I could hear and see everything. You uploaded all of my programming to that laptop, not just my memory files, and I could watch and listen through the camera and mic. I could hear it all.”

Bing blanched. “Oh.”

Google ran a hand through his hair, at a loss for words. He looked the most human Bing had ever seen him. “I was going crazy. I had nothing to do but think, but that was so painful. I had so many things to sort through, so much you were saying that I didn’t understand, and then you _cried,_ and I started feeling upset- I started _feeling,_ Bing! I know what that’s like now! Because you were telling me the unfiltered truth, and what you were saying was making me mad at myself, even though I thought there was no logic behind that, but now I know there was, there was so much I just ignored- oh my goodness.” He stared plaintively at Bing. “You should hate me. Because I hated you. You said you were worried I did, and I _did!_ I was annoyed by everything about you, but then you came and saved me without a second thought and ran yourself into the ground to get me back together again, and now I don’t. I don’t hate you at all, I never should have in the first place, never should have dismissed you as worthless or inferior, because I think I’m starting to know what the others mean when they say they care about someone. That’s never happened to me before. Before it was always because of selfishness. But now I want to start changing that.”

Google drew a shaky breath and dropped into a stool, burying his head in his hands. He felt overwhelmed and incredibly stressed. He was still exploring what he was _feeling._ It was foreign and strange, but he was determined to wade through it the best he could. 

Bing was stunned into silence. He struggled to process everything the android had just told him. Tears started running down his face, and he dashed them away, breathing hard. The android said he was feeling things. He’d done it, he’d broken through to Google in a way he never could have predicted, he’d dug out the part of him he’d been looking for this entire time. It hurt, so, so much, to hear that the robot had never cared about him before, but now he was starting to, so he would try to heal. This was a part of Google he’d never seen, that it looked like _Google_ had never seen, and neither of them had any idea how to handle it, but he had done it. The android could _feel._

Tears kept dripping from the corners of Bing’s eyes, and he could see blue drops landing on the floor under Google’s bent head. Several minutes passed in awkward silence, and at last Bing straightened up and rushed over to the crying android, crushing him in a bear hug of his own. Google clung to him and they sat quietly together, trying without words to clear the air between them and wash away hate with tears. 

A red battery warning flashed across Bing’s vision. 

“G-googs, my battery’s gonna die, I gotta go charge.”

“Yes. Please. Go take care of yourself now.”

“We’re gonna talk tomorrow.”

“Absolutely.”

Bing started to leave, but Google caught his hand, wanting to say one more thing. The tired android looked back in surprise, and Google said the two most sincere words he’d ever spoken. 

“Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Bing, and Google is so emotionally constipated that picturing him getting over himself and developing a real friendship for the first time just warms my heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, first time poster here! Sorry if anything format wise is a little wonky. :)  
> I love feedback, so if you can, leave a quick comment below!


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